Netflix’s new drama Pain Hustlers is one of many human-centric narratives that blockbuster-shy filmgoers are anticipating ahead of this year’s Oscar season.
The film is directed by David Yates, who has spent the last 16 years making films in J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World, beginning with 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Since then, he has directed three other Harry Potter films and three Fantastic Beasts movies. (He did take a break in 2016 to helm The Legend of Tarzan, which definitely exists despite that you’ve never heard of it.)
It seems that these days Yates is back to making No-Maj content since the Wizarding franchise isn’t the box office draw it once was — largely due to Rowling being publicly transphobic and the Fantastic Beasts movies being publicly dull. And boy, has Yates landed a stacked cast for his new drama, including Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy García, Catherine O’Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d’Arcy James, and Chloe Coleman.
What is Pain Hustlers about?
Per Deadline, the film centers on Liza Drake (Blunt), a high-school dropout trying to stay afloat while taking care of her daughter. Drake obtains a job with a failing pharmaceutical startup in a strip mall in Central Florida — which somehow sounds even less cheery than Azkaban. Although Drake’s charm and tenacity help the startup score big numbers on the balance sheet, the suddenly successful mother also finds herself at the heart of a criminal conspiracy.
The film is said to be tonally similar to The Big Short, American Hustle, and The Wolf of Wall Street. This will be an interesting stretch role for Yates, who has spent nearly two decades color-correcting magic battles until the only shade left is taupe.
We’re not judging Yates’ move to prestige drama yet — since this story requires that he flex a completely different set of muscles than in the Fantastic Beasts films. But we do want to caution that managing the irreverent tones of projects like The Big Short and The Wolf of Wall Street is harder than it looks.
Just ask Netflix’s other pharma project: Painkiller, a limited series starring starring Matthew Broderick, Clark Gregg, Taylor Kitsch, and Uzo Aduba. Critics and audiences alike found Painkillers to be a chore, primarily because of its vacillating tone where attempts at satire and black comedy felt out of place or just plain inauthentic.
Even Martin Scorsese, a guy who’s spent six or more decades making films about toxic protagonists, was raked over the coals by some viewers once The Wolf of Wall Street released. They claimed his film celebrated white-collar criminal Jordan Belfort’s debauchery, illegal business practices, and even the man himself, despite that Belfort is clearly shown punching his wife and attempting to kidnap his child.
Scorsese even ended his film by literally turning the camera on the audience, suggesting our own culpability in empowering people like Belfort whose rapid-rise success stories still titillate us even when we know he’s morally wrong.
For Yates to score big with Pain Hustlers, he’s going to need courage and instinct for adding just the right amount of frivolity to a story about how the rest of us have suffered to line the pockets of pharmaceutical reps and the companies they work for.
